Pennsylvania Senate: Narrower majority will confront GOP

By The Associated Press

Thursday, November 15, 2012

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Senate will embark on a new session in January with the narrowest Republican majority in nearly two decades, after the GOP lost a large cushion that gave them the upper hand and helped them pass several highly partisan bills under Gov. Tom Corbett.

Wednesday was the Senate’s last session day until senators are sworn in next year. Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said divisive issues are the exception in the chamber, and that Republicans often attract votes from Democrats on high-profile bills.

But Scarnati also insisted that the Democratic election gains were a result of decade-old district boundaries — newer, Republican-favored maps are still awaiting court approval — and a huge Democratic voter turnout to support the re-election of President Barack Obama.

“I do not see it as our policy, I don’t see it as our leadership and I don’t see it as our failure,” Scarnati said. “We’re going to continue as we have in the past. We’ll be aggressive in making sure that our policies in the Senate’s Republican caucus will have their vote on the floor.”

In January, the partisan split will be 27 to 23 after Democrats closed the gap by winning three of four seats left vacant by departing Republican Sens. Jeff Piccola of Dauphin County, Mary Jo White of Venango County, John Pippy of Allegheny County and Jane Earll of Erie County.

Still, Scarnati acknowledged his party will have less of a cushion on bills that lack solid GOP support. The “elephant in the room,” as he called it, has been the luxury to be able to pass a bill with Republican support while allowing several GOP senators to vote against it if they view it as politically perilous.

“The luxury has been we could leave a member or two off on a vote,” Scarnati said. “That luxury may be gone, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to pass something.”

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, said that, ultimately, the narrower GOP majority will mean more moderate legislation emerging from the chamber, but he disputed Scarnati’s explanation for why Republicans lost three seats. Democrats won, Costa said, because of voter dissatisfaction over Corbett’s record on health care, education, job creation and transportation funding.

Sweeping legislation to regulate the state’s booming natural gas drilling industry passed in February only after the narrow defeat of Democratic amendments targeting two key issues, the size of the impact fee and the extent of local zoning authority.

Republicans pushed through a school voucher bill, 27-22, last year, only to see it stall in the House of Representatives. They won approval of a map of new congressional districts, 26-24, that was designed to favor GOP candidates. And Republicans pushed through a controversial voter identification bill, 26-23, in March.

Lawmakers expect the next two years to be dominated by efforts to advance Corbett’s education priorities, find new sources of transportation funding, overhaul public pension plans and deal with the financial struggles of public schools and municipalities.

Part of the task for Republicans is the same: holding together members who represent the most rural and conservative areas of the state as well as the heavily populated and moderate suburbs of Philadelphia. But each Republican senator will have more power to sway policy, especially if Democrats provide a united front against it.

As a result, Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair, said the caucus will have to do a better job building consensus and presenting a more forceful case for its policies during floor debates or in public forums.

“We’re going to have to pull together more, we’re going to have to reach that consensus,” Eichelberger said. “It’s going to be more difficult, but we’re going to have to do it and once we do it, we’re going to have to take that argument forward in a more comprehensive way.”